NOISE

FLAT NOISE. Flicker, blink and cuddle are effective interpretative word echoes of physical movements. Similarly the verbal sounds of sneer and mellifluous call to mind what they mean. So do names such as pussy (sound symbolism) and cuckoo (onomatopoeia). Onomatopoeia is the grand evocative term for words wich imitate sounds: tick tock, choo choo, bark, miaow, oink, splat, clunk, bang, buzz, cakle,clatter, hiss, murmur, pop, snizzle, whiz, tinkle, whoosh, zoom. A parallel example is the graphic vernacular of speech ballons, think clouds and go faster stripes. Whereas onomatopoeia works through instinctive associations the graphic devices are only understood because everyone knows the visual language of comics and cartoons. The sound of battle conveyed in the message opposite written by Futurist Filippo Marinetti from the front-line trenches in 1915. The typography echoes the staccato clatter of bullets, explosive thud of bombs, whine of shrapnel and shriek of shells. The composition expresses panic ans confusion -- the fractured language of disassembled thoughts. A pictorial metaphor of violence.

about Noise in "The Art of looking sideways"